Tragedies
bring out the real in us; tragedies also unmask and rip off the façade from
many pretentions. When waters were submerging Kashmir, the first thing that
sunk were its governance systems, everything else took to waters after that.
Even while these floods and the weather conditions had been forewarned, a
callous indifference and silence ruled, as they have been ruling during all
other catastrophes in Kashmir.

Early
on, last week, as south Kashmir started caving in to waters, it had become
clear that the flood was unrelenting. On Friday the 5th of
September, envisaging the likely scale of this tragedy, pro freedom leader
Mirwaiz Umar gave a call for volunteers and aid, to undertake flood relief
measures. This was the first organized relief effort to have been started in
Srinagar even as early indicators of devastation had still not woken up the
government. Into Saturday as water levels rose, as did the criticism against
government inaction, the CM was seen to tour some flood affected areas starting
with the Indian army 15 corps at Badami Bagh Srinagar. Yet except for the few
tours by CM’s entourage, there was no visible plan of action on ground to deal
with this crisis. Evening when a Chinar tree collapsed to rain fury near
RajBagh, the CM was, in tow with media, personally supervising the clearance of
the tree debris. In such times when the magnitude of a disaster is huge and
unfolding, events like removal of tree debris should have been left to local
officials, while the governance head should be ideally working out a plan of
action with his team. By next day as Jehlum waters pushed into more habitations
and took with it everything that came into its way, Kashmir was sinking,
abandoned by those who claimed to be its masters. Overnight this government had
vanished into thin air and everyone was left to fend for self. This failure of
governance could be best exemplified by the fact that when waters started
rising at Kashmir’s primary maternity hospital, Lal Ded, all medical and health
staff fled leaving patients at the mercy of invading waters. When many infants
and newborns died, parents were forced to wrap-up their corpses like parcels,
awaiting burial in this flood fury. When the CM was broadcast by cameras
supervising the tree debris removal, did he even for a second think of the
hundreds of patients and infants stuck at the maternity hospital which was just
a few hundred meters away from the tree debris site and very vulnerable since
this hospital, like many others, lay close to the banks of overflowing Jehlum?
Tragically even days after the rains had stopped there was no rescue effort
from the government at this hospital, even as Indian choppers flew by, where
patients and attendants survived by local help only. Elsewhere in worst flood
affected areas like Jawahar Nagar, RajBagh, Natipora, Solina, Nowgam, Batmaloo,
Bemina, Batapora, Dalgate, Tengpora etc, the initial help that emerged came
only from local volunteers. Not only had the government been forewarned about
such a flood few years back, also Srinagar is clearly marked by flood prone
areas v/s those where flood waters are unlikely to reach. Thus the government
could have clearly chalked rescue & relief measures also identifying areas
where the flood affected could be temporarily shifted. Tragically with
governments in Kashmir always been more concerned about own survival than of
commoners, such measures do not seem a priority for them. Just days before
these floods, local media had reported a senior minister in the present
government, Taj
Mohidin blaming one of his ministerial colleague Sham Lal for deliberately
failing the ‘flood prevention projects’ even while the government was well
aware of its serious implications. Plain failure of the government or
deliberate attempts to put Kashmir to risk?

As
New Delhi took note of the flood tragedy in Kashmir, NDRF and Indian army teams
started some rescue efforts, but with lack of guidance and knowledge about
local areas and approaches, many of these teams were soon going aimlessly.
Initially such rescue efforts proved to be feeble and clumsy, mainly directed
by instinct and personal pointers and accused of being selective in rescue.
Locals clam that Indian teams gave priority to rescue tourists and non
Kashmiris, ignoring most locals they passed by. With the rescue efforts by
Indian forces having reached less than 10% of the flood affected, in major
flood areas it were the local volunteers who rescued an overwhelming majority
of people, away from media glare or nationalistic PR promotion. Even the food
& water packets air dropped by Indian forces (even in the very limited
areas they operated) it is estimated that more than 50% were wasted since
either these landed into flood waters where the affected could not wade to or
were destroyed on impact on ground. Locals also found that many of these food
packets were expired.

The
government is not the only one to be blamed here, while it takes the major
share of blame for its inaction and apathy. Introspecting, some of the blame
for vandalizing nature lay with common people too. Just days before these
floods were gathering, I personally witnessed locals near the Dal basin of
Saida Kadal and its interiors refilling Dal lake waters illegally to create
land for encroachment. And this has been happening for many years now, brazenly
with the tacit support of local politicians, who nurture such lake grabbers for
vote banks. It has been estimated that the waters of Dal and Nigeen lake have
shrunk by almost 40% due to encroachment and refilling. This very illegally
forced contraction of the lake resulting in greatly decreasing the water
retention capacity of these water bodies. Elsewhere across Kashmir the water
carrying capacity of Jehlum and its flood channels have greatly been reduced by
silt and shrinking embankments.

The
flood affected, especially ones who lost everything, like other IDP’s
(internally displaced people) having been uprooted from their dwellings, will
have to start from scratch. And the government of India will have to treat them
exactly like it treats other IDP’s like the Pandit migrants. The same kind of
rehabilitation assistance in restructuring lives and rebuilding homes is needed
for these floods affected IDP’s that it offers KP migrants. And by providing
equal treatment to people affected by calamities in Kashmir, India will only
prove that its approach to the people of this state is not limited by religion
or creed.

Now
that flood waters are receding and people are starting to gather the pieces of
their lives, there will be claims and counter claims by politicians, but fact
remains that NO political party, especially those supporting New Delhi here (hence
having ways and means to act in Kashmir) helped in any of the rescue efforts in
the valley. Not surprisingly again, what the India media relayed from Kashmir
was a one-sided picture of the rescue efforts here, many pathetically promoting
it as a PR exercise. While the Indian forces did meagerly contribute in the
rescue efforts, yet they were not the only ones involved, in fact an
overwhelming majority of flood affected people in the valley were rescued by
civilian volunteers. The Indian media has not relayed how hundreds of thousands
of people had been rescued and were being taken care of by volunteers in areas
of downtown, north Srinagar, civil lines, in colleges, schools, local community
centers, mosques and all this without any government help.

As
corpses are being retrieved from receding waters, there has to be a postmortem
of the systems that failed this state again and again. So huge is the trust
deficit against the state here that most people have been asking New Delhi and
other relief agencies to direct their relief efforts, if any, bypassing the
state government, for otherwise they believe not much of this will reach the
flood victims. Last heard the CM claimed to the Indian media that ‘his
government had set up 137 relief centers catering to above a lac affected’.
He could provide credence to such claims by uploading details of these relief
camps and their operations on the internet. His government could also take off
much of its criticism by providing details of the pre-flood measures it had
undertaken and its post flood relief measures, including details of people
rescued by state officials. Until we see these details, this claim of ‘state
relief’ will be treated on ground as just ‘political talk’. Couple of days ago
when a senior government minister and NC general secretary was asked by an
Indian TV channel about criticism on governments inaction he replied “this
criticism of government inaction (in flood relief) is being done by vested
interests”. Very true Sir, every flood affected who lost his home and
hearth has a ‘vested interest’ in speaking about how your government failed us
all. Those who survived these floods, survived in spite of the apathy of this
government, and those who died in these floods could have been saved had it not
been for political arrogance and governance indifference.